Smart, Morehouse make top-16

US fencers Keeth Smart, Tim Morehouse, and Ivan Lee all finished according to their seeds in the early elimination rounds today. Lee fell to #1 seed Stanislav Pozdniakov 15-9 in the round of 32 after winning his first match with Japan’s Tatsuro Watanabe. Jason Rogers finished 40th.

Morehouse notched a 2nd round win against French sabrist Vincent Anstett before matching up against Pozdniakov in the round of 16. Morehouse attempted to avenge Lee’s earlier loss, but fell short – 15-13.

On the other side of the DE table, Keeth Smart, seeded 15th, won his first round match 15-11 and then ran into some trouble against Balazs Lontay (HUN) but prevailed 15-14. Smart was unable to win his next 14-14 match and was defeated 15-14 by the Ukraine’s Vladamir Lukashenko.

Lukashenko broke seed early in the day, coming in as the #34 seed but winning against #2 Alexey Yakimenko in the round of 32 before notching another upset victory against Smart to enter the top-8.